Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Mar. 5 -- Oil production in Venezuela and Ecuador are not under any threat despite rising tensions with their neighbor Columbia, according to oil ministers from both countries.
Venezuelan Energy and Mines Minister Rafael Ramirez said his country's oil industry infrastructure "has been protected for some time now" and that the country is "ready to protect" itself.
Ecuador's Oil Minister Galo Chiriboga said his country's oil output would not be affected by recent military movements in the region.
Both Venezuela and Ecuador have sent troops to their respective borders with Colombia in response to Colombia's killing of a top rebel leader on Ecuadorian soil on Mar. 1.
Earlier, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned that his country and Ecuador could go to war with Colombia over the military incursion into Ecuador by Colombian forces that killed Raul Reyes, the second most senior rebel commander for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Colombian authorities said Reyes and 16 other guerrillas were killed in a raid on a FARC camp 1.8 km inside Ecuador's border with Colombia. Documents recovered from Reyes' captured laptop computer showed Chavez's administration recently paid $300 million to the rebels, while high-level meetings had been held between rebels and Ecuadorian officials, Colombian officials said.
"We don't want a war... (But) if we have to give (a war), we will, and it will be in Colombia," said Chavez during a nationally broadcast radio and television show.
Ecuador "will always count on Venezuela for anything under any circumstance," said Chavez, who ordered Venezuelan troops to his country's border with Colombia.
Columbia justified the raid on grounds that the Colombian rebels were using Ecuador as a base to attack their homeland and that Venezuela had provided financial and military support.
"We cannot allow terrorists who seek refuge in other countries to spill the blood of our countrymen," said Columbian President Alvaro Uribe, who added that, "We are not warmongers, but we are not weak."
US President George W. Bush backed Colombia, accusing Chavez of provocative maneuvers and warning he opposed any act of aggression in the region. For his part, Chavez says Uribe is a pawn in a US plot to invade Venezuela, the No. 4 oil supplier to the US.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].